Karnataka - Mangalore   

Raids unearth assets worth Rs. 1.21 crore from two officials

— Photo: R. Eswarraj

EVIDENCE: Superintendent of Police (Lokayukta) Chandrashekar Prasad showing the cheques seized from the house of one of the accused during a raid, in Mangalore on Thursday.

MANGALORE: Daylong raids carried out by sleuths of Lokayukta on the residences and property owned by two assistant town planning officers of Mangalore City Corporation — Shivaraj and Manjunatha Swamy — on Wednesday yielded assets worth Rs. 1.21 crore.

A team headed by Superintendent of Police (Lokayukta) Chandrashekar Prasad conducted the raids.

Mr. Prasad told presspersons here on Thursday that the officials had joined the corporation in 1989.

Their net income in the last 18 years of service after taking into account their expenses could not exceed Rs. 17 lakh each. The take-home salary of these officials after various deductions was around Rs. 12,000 a month. The recovery made was clearly a case of their owning assets disproportionate to known sources of income, he said.

Giving details of the recovery made from the search on the rented flat of Mr. Swamy at Lalbagh, Mr. Prasad said officials recovered assets worth Rs. 46 lakh, including a car, gold jewellery, cash, fixed deposit receipts and two cheques for Rs. 5 lakh each. The cheques were issued to Mr. Swamy by Dinesh V. Pai of Akhil Associates from a shop owned by Madhusudan, brother-in-law of Mr. Shivaraj, he said.

The searches on the flat owned by Mr. Shivaraj at Lalbagh and an other property at Doomappa Compound in Pandeshwar yielded assets estimated at Rs. 75 lakh, Mr. Prasad said.

These include cash, bank and fixed deposit receipts, gold jewellery, a motorcycle, car, share certificates and a MUDA site in the name of his wife.

The total worth of 10 cents of land and a house at Pandeshwar owned by Mr. Shivaraj had been estimated at Rs. 35 lakh, he added.

The team had seized various documents and gold jewellery from the officials, Mr. Prasad said and added that their household and daily-use items had been returned after “mahajar”. The sleuths also searched the residence of Mr. Swamy’s father at Birur, he added.

Stating that cases had been registered against the officials under Section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Mr. Prasad said further investigations would reveal the exact amount of assets created by them.

Urging people who might have knowledge of ill-gotten wealth of these officials to approach the Lokayukta, Mr. Prasad said names of such persons would be kept confidential.

Incidentally, these two corporation officials had paid Rs. 12.5 lakh to fake Lokayukta officials, who had “raided” them recently.

One of them had even lodged a complaint with the police, who arrested these fake officials.

Although, the Lokayukta did not proceed against these corporation officials then, the incident set in a motion a process of investigation against them, which culminated in raids carried out on their apartments on Wednesday.

Mr. Prasad said that he would submit a report on the officials to Lokayukta Santosh Hegde at the earliest.

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